Steel Venom

Every summer my wife tries to get me on an amusement park ride called Steel Venom.

She loves the contraption – about as much as I hate it.

Last summer was no exception and one afternoon we found ourselves bickering in the shadow of a half roller-coaster, half catapult.

“You’re chicken,” she taunted.

“Not at all,” I said.

Overhead, the ride flexed and moaned as a trolley corkscrewed its way up a high tower. When it reached the top, it paused for one heart-thumping moment to dangle its victims, before plunging into a wild spiral that ended only inches from the ground.

As the riders flashed by, howling in terror. A few wore faces whiter than death and I thought for a moment that I recognized an old friend among them.

Without the slightest hesitation or remorse, the trolley shot up a companion tower then repeated the process over and over – until everyone, rider and observer alike, was nauseous.

“Don’t look like much fun to me,” I observed.

“Chicken,” she repeated.

Believe me, Steel Venom did not frighten me. I’ve dodged bullets, survived a car wreck and endured an audit by the IRS and not one of those things even quickened my pulse – because nothing, absolutely nothing will ever come close to the ride I took on a Radio Flyer wagon when I was six years old.

***

At first, I simply put things into my wagon and towed them around the yard. But I soon discovered it was more fun to hop in the wagon and roll down our backyard hill.

If rolling down the hill was fun, I reasoned, the most fun could be had by rolling down the steepest hill possible. We had such a hill nearby, an old cobblestone street that plunged off a Mississippi River bluff.

To say the street was steep was to understate steepness.

The grade was close to vertical and was one of those hills where things disappear going over the crest and only reappear at the bottom a long time later.

Everything on the hillside: trees, fences and houses, clung desperately to the slope because across its base four lanes of busiest traffic in town sawed past each other – eager for something to let go.

Without a moment of reflection, I towed my wagon to the crest of the hill, hopped in and surrendered myself to the magic of gravity.

I may have had time to reconsider my rash decision – but I doubt it.

Things happened too quickly.

The wagon wheels wobbled frantically…

The tires chattered against the cobblestones…

A cotter-key popped off an axle and pinged into the gutter…

A parked car whizzed by…

A woman screamed and dropped her groceries onto the sidewalk…

A dog gave chase but couldn’t keep up…

It is then I realized that gravity was not the only force at work. The other was raw fear.

Like most kids, I had a monster living under my bed.

He had green oily skin, yellow iridescent eyes and long claws that he raked across the floorboards whenever I approached my bed. If I wasn’t quick enough or didn’t leap from far enough away, he’d snatch at my ankles to drag me down into the horrors that lay under the bed.

As I rocketed down the hill, suddenly there he was sitting on my legs and glaring into my eyes.

“Remember me?” he said.

I nodded that I did.

“Well…,” he said, “I finally gotchya.”

I nodded again.

“Now,” he said rather whimsically, “what do I do with you?”

I was too scared to answer.

About then we hit a pothole and went airborne. I had never flown before and apparently neither had my monster – because it scared the crap out of him.

We landed so hard it rattled his eyeballs.

BAMM!

Then another pothole launched us again.

Swooosh….

We hung in the air for the longest of moments – before the ground rushed up to meet us.

WHOP!

My monster turned to me in desperation. “Make it stop,” he bawled.

I felt sorry for him – I couldn’t save myself, much less any other creature.

Another pothole sent us spiraling.

The sky and ground swapped places and then upside down, I watched a high flying cloud streak across a cobalt sky – and there among the clouds was a man standing on a road above the sky – frantically waving his arms to stop the traffic.

He and the earth slowly righted themselves as the wagon gently touched down and skipped between the walls of traffic held back by my modern-day Moses.

The wagon, the monster and I skidded to a stop a half-block later.

People bubbled out of their cars as others flowed off their porches and washed toward us. My monster, always shy, managed a half-hearted “later” and vanished under the remains of the wagon.

What fantastic story! I especially like the monster under the bed. We should all spend more time frightening our monsters (I say, while trying not to think too loudly about the stupid things I did as a kid, just in case anyone is listening).

Very funny…those wagons were crazy. I used to make go carts with old carriage wheels and planks of wood. Steering and braking were always sketchy but coming down the hills were such an adrenaline rush though I had no idea what adren was as a kid. Now that was fun. No modern fancy ride would equal that rush.😊

We used to call those carts, “chugs” and no baby buggy was safe in our neighborhood. Remember using curtain rods for axles? We would take an old apple crate (remember those) and mount it on the front and nail two tin can tops to the front as headlights. Gosh, those were fun days!

Ahhh Greg this is hilarious! On a related note, I recently heard that Stephen King’s Pennywise (“It”) will be making a repeat appearance in a few months. I think he might benefit from one of your Radio Flyer tours…

Great story! I’m going to have a picture of a little kid careening down an impossibly steep hill in a wagon in my mind for quite some time, it was that real.
And it answered a question I have been puzzled by for a long time: what, exactly, is the attraction of those crazy roller coasters? And now I realize, it is facing down and (seemingly) conquering our fears. I suppose it works, but personally, I wouldn’t know because I don’t ride the wretched things. The “scrambler” has always been excitement enough for me.

You can almost imagine Calvin screaming down a steep hill in his wagon with Hobbs riding behind him.

It is about facing down fears but it is also about suspending our disbelief. Just as we get frightened by a scary movie, knowing full well that the monster is an actor, so we ignore the fact that engineers and lawyers have poured over every aspect of roller-coaster development.

Good point! It’s scary, but at the same time, it is not real. Not as if our car went off the road and plunged down a steep cliff.
And until you mentioned it, I didn’t realize the connection to the Calvin and Hobbes comics! Sometimes I can be a bit slow….

I had a hill like that in Chippewa Falls. It didn’t have 4 lanes of traffic at the bottom, though…it had a rather sharp dog-leg if you wanted to continue on the pavement…or a good half-acre of trees if you couldn’t make the turn.

I used to go down it on my bike with my younger brother. The first one to touch the brakes ‘lost.’

What a gift you have! I was right there with you. My heart was racing and breathing ceased at moments. The monster is always with us. Currently, mine lives in the crawl space under my house. When anyone calls me chicken I begin to cluck and flap my arms like wings. I admit it. Funny thing is that I work in an amusement park – in a store. I walk right past those roller coasters without glancing their way. Why would I look where the monster is lurking?

Crawl space monsters are particularly vicious. They have to be meaner than all the other creepy crawlers down there. Ooooo, working in an amusement park sounds like fun…but I bet you pack your lunch. They are expensive.

Ah, those were the days. I had no hills on the prairie to undertake such perilous risks. Rather my siblings and I built ramps from boards and cement blocks from which we launched our bikes. We were, so we thought, Evil Knievel jumping the Grand Canyon. There was no traffic either.

My memories are different, yet the same.

As always, a colorful story laced with strong verbs and decidedly excellent writing that takes me right there, into your wagon. Well done. Again.

My monster lived in the basement rather than under the bed, but he didn’t show up until I was in seventh grade and we moved into a new house. I suspect the contractors disturbed him when they dug the basement.

We had relatives who lived in assorted towns along the Mississippi, so I have a grasp of those hills. I can’t even imagine… But you described it well! What do you suppose the heart rate of those adults might have been?

That’s a great story, nice twist and fond memories of Radio Flyer days. Your parents would probably be arrested and lose custody of you today. Those things didn’t kill (many of) us, and I think they helped develop skills that were important later in life.

We didn’t have a television until I was twelve. Most of the other kids in the neighborhood didn’t either and I swear every family on the block had at least 10 kids. On any given day in the summer, there were three baseball games going in the street and still kids had to sit on the bench (curb).

In the winter there was pickup hockey in backyard rinks, sleding and snowball fights.

And then there were fist fights… at least three a day of those too. I will not glorify that aspect of our lives but the first time a kid gets a bloody nose is transformative. Stan once made a note of this, he said, “You don’t think it is odd how many of the kids we grew up with became soldiers, cops and lawyers?”

We had a tv but controlled by adults, so I was outside too. Baseball, wiffleball, primitive (by today’s standards) skateboards and riding my bike everywhere. Not that many kids, but lots of good old fashion dangerous fun.